TOPIC: Is It Discrimination?

Here is an article I found regarding the possibility of discrimination towards the Japanese People for the depiction of them in the this summers block buster "Pearl Harbor".

THE MOVIE â€” about the Japanese attack on the U.S. Naval base at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, on Dec. 7, 1941 â€” is a â€œstark and vivid depiction of ... the worst that can happen in war,â€ said Floyd Mori, president of the Japanese American Citizens League (JACL), the countryâ€™s largest Asian American civil rights organization.
â€œMost Americans have difficulties distinguishing between Asian Americans and Asian nationalsâ€ and they widely stereotype Asians, Mori said Monday at a rally in the Little Tokyo section of Los Angeles.
He added that the movie could fuel hatred of Americans of Asian descent and he said Japanese groups around the United States have heightened security measures out of fear of a backlash.

Many at the rally complained that the film, set in Hawaii, a state mainly populated by Asians, featured few Asian faces. In addition, they said, all the Japanese characters are depicted as enemies while Japanese-American soldiers arenâ€™t featured at all.
â€œWe are loyal, patriotic citizens of this great nation,â€ Mori said. â€œThousands of Japanese Americans volunteered for military service,â€ he added.
â€œNo matter what we achieve ... how far weâ€™ve come in this country â€” when the topic of Pearl Harbor comes up, weâ€™re always dragged back to that event,â€ JACL executive director John Tateishi said.

Anyone care to comment on this article. I say 'It happened, it should be shown, the Japanese should deal with it.' Every major power has done their dirty deeds. Its not pretty but it's a fact!

The list of movies that shouldn't have been made because someone might be offended. Too long, too long. Schindler can go home. Boys Don't Cry can go boo-hoo. One Flew Over the Nurses Union. Some people do bad things. Japan declared war on us and attacked out of the blue without warning and they were very serious jerks in the way they fought, invaded, and occupied. Enslavement, rape, murder can really get you a bad rap. What's a film maker to do? Show off the new kindler gentler version? I like real stories with hard lessons worth remembering. Pearl Harbor is one of those; as real as it gets.

Why all this flap now?
How about "From Here to Eternity"? circa 1952
"Midway"-late 70's ...the list could go on and on. You get the idea.

One of the most influential studios-Columbia,
who made FHTE, is now owned and controlled
by "the Japs": SONY.

To those who have nothing better to do than
to try "gentle-down" history, GET A LIFE!

As for the current crop of so-called filmmakers, TRY SOME ORIGINALITY! Pearl
Harbor has been covered cinematically
ad nauseum as has the Titanic tragedy.

It has become so expensive to make a movie
that the financial powers-that-be are terrified of investing in anything that is not a "proven" commodity. Hence we get
pathetic remakes of (for God's sake!) TV shows!...any given episode of the original
series being superior to the movie.

Would-be avant-garde film festivals think
originality means how many disgusting words
and actions can be jammed into a low/no-budget film. Eventually this filters up to
main-line directors and we get a generation
of movie-goers so jaded they can no longer
be shocked by anything.

I've been around film all my life. As an
amatuer filmmaker, I won two awards, one a
national one from Kodak as a teenager.

I've never seen the film industry in such a
copycat mode. Even the recent "Bedazzled"
was a remake of a 1967 Dudley Moore film.
Every now and then, a little gem emerges like
The 6th Day, which led to some interesting
philosophical questions about cloning while
being entertaining but even it unnecessarily degenerated into a cuss-fest with totally inappropriate (and talentless) pop music toward the end.

I'll get off my soapbox now. As an ex-exhibitor, film maker and film historian, I have very strong opinions about film, past and present.